HELP w/New 24g Carribean Tank... Seahorses?

[gzimmerman]

Hello reef peeps, my name’s Greg. I am excited to jump back into the hobby after a long hiatus. For most of my life I've traveled all the time, or moved (or had really really bad source water), or other lame excuses that I couldn't do a reef / saltwater tank justice. I did manage all the saltwater and freshwater tanks for the biology dept back in college so I consider myself intermediate. I have a planted little 6g Fluval Edge w/ some SE Asian freshwater species (green-eyed rasboras) that has been a great, low-maintenance success.


Questions:
1. I’m going w/ a Caribbean Ecoregion. Any suggestions on livestock are much appreciated, preferably livestock that can be obtained captive-bred or is abundant enough to collect sustainably. I was planning on seahorses / pipefish (see below for tank details) but want them to be captive-raised and from the Caribbean and I think Dwarfs are too small for this tank. Are there larger suitable species? If there is not a good fit for these species in my tank, then I’ll go w/ other Caribbean fish species as recommended. I’m big on small critters like arrow crabs, shrimp, small specialized fish, etc and might not jump to many sps corals in this tank and wait and do sps on a bigger tank at home.

2. Depending on #1, what suggestions for substrate? I’m planning on aragonite, but maybe not the best for seahorses?. I do have a whole bucket of calcium sand that came w/the tank so it’s not a big deal since nothing’s in there yet.

3. Any other questions / comments / complaints are welcome. I am getting back into this so the technology now is a lot different than 15y ago…

Goals / Background : Always a good idea to define the end goals of a project first, and here are mine. I put my questions first so you don’t get bored reading this manifesto…

1. The Tank as it Exists Now: I am working with a 24g JBJ NanoCube bought off of Craigs List for $150. Total impulse buy but it got me back into the hobby. There were no lights so I purchased a 24W x 2 light kit from AH Supply (they were an awesome vendor in terms of support) after first considering LEDs. There was no skimmer so I bought an Aquatic Life 115 (having some trouble getting that dialed in but working on that). If I did it all over again I’d probably save $ by buying new, anyway… I also purchased a filter media basket from InTank with (from top to bottom) blue&white floss/ Chemi-Pure/ Purigen. The circ pump was not great so I put in a Hydor 1200 (300gph). Some other people at work were in a rush to get liverock so I have about 24 – 28lbs of cultured liverock from Live Rock Ranch out of the Florida Keys. Right now the only animals are about 8 blue-leg hermit crabs and 8 turbo-snails to keep the live rock clean. I do not have substrate yet as I wanted to make sure if a bunch of detritus was falling off the live rock I could suck it up. Surprisingly little has come off the rock and the tank seems to be doing really well. I had the live rock air-expressed overnight to a local airport straight from the culture off in the keys and it came w/ fan worms, a few little anemones, etc. so it was mainly alive and didn’t need much cycling as far as I can tell. Too bad the airline left it out on the runway in 45F or it would have been really loaded w/ stuff. I am taking a water sample now to a lfs now until my water test kit comes in the mail…

2. I was planning to do a seahorse / pipefish tank… However, I want to keep this tank to Caribbean only and I’m only familiar w/ dwarf seahorses. Apparently my setup may be too big for dwarfs after going through a lot of the forums. Are there any larger Caribbean seahorse / pipefish species that would work in this setup? One other benefit of my company is we have an in-house bioassay lab with an daily supply of RO water, brine shrimp, algae cultures, copepods, small fish, algae cultures, and all sorts of other goodies to feed picky feeders which is why I was thinking seahorses. Also, the flow in the tank is not too crazy, so I thought it might work...

3. Again, I’d like the tank corals / fish inhabitants to be from one area (ecoregion). That seems hard to stick w/ all the stuff going around. My plan is to get the live rock and fishes to be collected from the source in a sustainable fashion; either cultured out on the reef on artificial materials or from a reputable source. I’m not sure on exact species yet other than what comes in on the liverock but I was going to go off of some of Michael Paletta’s suggestions in the New Aquarium, (and ask the forum).

4. The CFL light source seemed to be the easiest thing to put in the lid in the short term and the light seems to be really good. I may need to add a fan (already purchased) if temperature becomes an issue. I consider myself very good at electronics, timers and soldering so I am drawn to the challenge of adding LEDs in the future if need-be. For now, compact fluorescents seemed to be the easiest solution however so I went w/ that (see Questions). I could move cfls down to a sump in the future….

5. I am tempted to add a refugium. Anyone that can direct me to some ways to add a refugium would be appreciated. I could put the seahorses in there…

About me: I work as an environmental consultant / diver with admittedly one of the coolest job descriptions around. Basically Jacques Cousteau in freshwater. I work primarily in freshwater river systems in the Midwest diving for endangered species-related issues and completing the associated paperwork. We dive using helmets, communications and underwater video to the surface from a dive boat, etc. My specialty is endangered freshwater mussels (unionids). I haven’t done too much marine work under contract (just for fun) but I hope someday we get some more opportunities there. That’s why I like saltwater – it’s not the same stuff I see going to work. I do have a bit of an aversion to these online forums because it’s hard to find good advice until you get to know everyone… So here we go… I am going to post this to both seahorse thread and new to the hobby thread since my questions are both reef and seahorse depending on which way I go w/ this. I tried posting to “new to the hobby” once and didn’t get any help, probably user error in the way I posted.

[rayjay]

Well, I can't comment on most of your set up as I have no experience with much of what you are doing.
Seahorses do best in species only tanks. Other situations do happen but a lot of seahorses are lost in the attempts.
Problem first off is that seahorse tanks require more work than reef tanks with better housekeeping and more frequent larger water changes.
Another problem is that your tank, being a little under the recommended 29/30g recommended size for a pair of standard size seahorses, would require even more care.
Tankmates need to be very selectively chosen as anemones, stinging corals and many shrimp are out, and sps corals seem to fare poorly due to water conditions that aren't to their liking.
True captive bred seahorses from seahorsesource.com would be the best selection for the pair of seahorses.
Next problem is that very few hobbyists have succeeded keeping pipe fish with seahorses. I think it is probably due to exposure of pathogens from the pipe fish as it is VERY difficult to find captive bred pipefish with almost all available being wildcaught.
A lot of information you need to know is available in links posted at the bottom of the page of My Thoughts on Seahorse Keeping
The links provide some background into needs and one of the links is to a Tankmates page.

[gzimmerman]

Thank you - I had read that "My Thoughts on Seahorse Keeping" and was looking to see if that was the going philosophy of the community or one person's experience. The more I look into it, this seems to be going towards a reef tank and maybe I can do some dwarf seahorses in a 6g nano later on down the line...

So.. Suggestions on the livestock selection for a reef tank from anyone are welcome.

[ann83]

If you did decide to do seahorses, H. erectus are a very hardy species and can be found in the gulf and down through the Caribbean and are readily available captive bred. As mentioned, the tank would be a little on the small side for them, not just in terms of water quality, but in terms of the space they'll actually use. H. reidi could be found in the Caribbean, too, but are a little harder to get CB at the moment.
Or, there are some Caribbean pipefish, for sure, although I am less familiar there with the available species and they are more sporadically, if ever, available captive bred. Many (all?) are going to be more seagrass associated pipes, rather than reef pipes. It is possible you will find pipefish more suitable to that size tank. S. scovelli and C. hildebrandi come to mind, but there are others.
My take on the "species only" issue with seahorses is this: most people have had little to no problem keeping seahorses with other small, peaceful, non-syngnathid species (think gobies), but when mixing with another syngnathid species (other seahorse species, pipefish, even same species of seahorse from different source), success rates drop drastically due to disease transmission.
Another thought is that seahorses, and seagrass pipes both tend to have difficulty at temperatures higher than 74* due to disease issues, so you will want to make sure if keeping a syngnathid species, that you are able to keep the temperature stable at lower than typical reef temps. Most compatible species of fish do well at these temperatures, also.